Laforgue, Jules

(1860-1887)

   poet

   Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, Jules Laforgue, after what he described as a "sad and malnourished youth" in Tarbes and, later, in Paris, subsisted with difficulty but still frequented the literary milieu of the era. A tutor to Princess Augusta of Prussia (1881-86), he edited in Berlin his Complaintes (1885), a work of feigned frivolity and irony. He then published L'Imitation de Notre-Dame de la Lune (1886), a collection of poems in which he demonstrates his mastery of free verse. Laforgue recapitulated his sentiments in prose, in his stories Moralités legendaires (posthumous, 1887).

   See also toulet, paul-jean; carco, francis; fargue, léon-paul.